In Memoriam: Roger Moore, 1927-2017

Moore

Roger Moore shows off his Seiko in a promotional still from the Moonraker era

The family of Sir Roger Moore announced on social media earlier today that the actor died this morning in Switzerland. He was 89.

A reliably genteel screen presence, Moore will inevitably be remembered as the third actor to play James Bond on the big screen, taking over from Sean Connery with Live And Let Die. Moore made seven features in the series between 1973 and 1985, the most for any movie Bond.

Unlike Connery, Moore was already a recognizable face when he started in the 007 franchise. A jobbing actor since the late 40s, he spent some time as a knitwear model before trying his luck in America as a contract player for MGM.

His resume from the 50s and early 60s is pretty varied; he went where the work was, appearing in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, playing the recurring role of Bret Maverick’s English cousin Beau on a season of James Garner’s con-man show, and starring in the unmemorable Italian sword-and-sandal picture Romulus And The Sabines.

Moore starred in a couple of negligible TV series before landing The Saint in 1961; as Simon Templar, smooth criminal and modern-day Robin Hood, Moore became a fixture on British television, and the adventurous nature of the show set up his transition to the 007 franchise nicely.

For 12 years, Moore would be the face of Ian Fleming’s indestructible superspy – though he had the bad luck to jump in just as the series entered a particularly inconsistent run, its producers and screenwriters chasing blockbuster trends and looking profoundly uncool by doing so.

But even when Bond was forced to fight sharks and travel into space, Moore made it feel fun instead of desperate. When the producers shifted back to basics in For Your Eyes Only, arguably the best film of Moore’s run, he was up for that too – even if, at age 54, he was already starting to age out of the role. He made two more films, Octopussy and A View To A Kill, and then he was out.

He wasn’t idle between Bond films, either. Moore always went where the work was, and once he donned the mantle of 007 the projects got larger. His poise and bearing – a combination of his time at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and his post-war military service – made him a natural fit for military characters, and he turned up in The Wild Geese, Escape To Athena (as the duplicitous German commandant of a POW camp) and The Sea Wolves.

Moore also took the time to tweak his most famous role in projects like The Cannonball Run – where he played an especially entitled version of himself, complete with a tricked-out spy car – and ffolkes, which cast him as an eccentric counter-terrorism expert.

Once his run as James Bond ended, though, Moore took it easy. He didn’t exactly retire, but the roles became smaller and sillier – an appearance in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s The Quest, a cameo in Spice World, a voice role as a cat named Lazenby in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore.

Mostly, he toured the world as a UNICEF ambassador, worked on his autobiography (My Word Is My Bond, published in 2008) and generally enjoyed being Roger Moore.